On Thursday, Felix Walworth received the contract from the organizer of the music festival he would soon be playing, South by Southwest (SXSW). “If SXSW determines, in its sole discretion, that showcasing acts or their representatives have acted in ways that adversely affect the viability of their official SXSW showcase, the following actions are available to SXSW,” the contract said. It listed a number of consequences, including: “SXSW will notify the appropriate U.S. immigration authorities of the above actions.”

Walworth, whose band Told Slant was slated to perform at the festival in Austin, Texas next week, promptly tweeted his response:

After looking through this contract sent to me by sxsw I have decided to cancel Told Slant’s performance at the festival pic.twitter.com/rI2Xv0duJl

— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017

Unlike other festivals that focus on a few major headliners and medium-level acts, SXSW, which had its inaugural festival in 1987, is one of the world’s premier showcases for emerging artists. According to Roland Swenson, the festival’s managing director, 62 international artists are slated to perform at this year’s festival. This year, SXSW will feature an event called “Contrabanned: #MusicUnites,” which will host acts from countries affected by President Donald Trump’s failed travel ban.

After Walworth, also a member of the bands Eskimeaux and Bellows, canceled his performance, Swenson issued a statement. “We were sorry to learn that one of our invited performers chose to cancel his performance at this year’s SXSW Music Festival due to a misunderstanding of our policies regarding international artists,” he said. Swenson continued:

We understand that given the current political climate surrounding immigration, the language that was published seems strong. Violating U.S. immigration law has always carried potentially severe consequences, and we would be remiss not to warn our participating acts of the likely repercussions.

Swenson said the clause in question is intended as “a safeguard to provide SXSW with a means to respond to an act that does something truly egregious, such as disobeying our rules about pyrotechnics on stage, starting a brawl in a club, or causing serious safety issues.”

Other artists, 35 as of Friday afternoon, joined Walworth in demanding SXSW to apologize, and to “immediately drop this clause from their contract.” In a letter directed at SXSW, the artists said: “SXSW is a well respected institution and has a responsibility to show leadership by refusing to collaborate with the government’s campaign of fear and hate toward non-citizens.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez signed a memo on Thursday that orders county officials to comply with federal immigration detention requests. This order makes Miami-Dade the first jurisdiction to relinquish its status as an immigrant sanctuary, a title given to it by the Department of Justice in May of 2016, but one that the county itself has resisted.

Gimenez’s action comes a day after President Trump signed an executive order titled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States” on Wednesday, which denies federal funding to sanctuary cities by instructing the Department of Homeland Security to cut its funding to these cities. This, in effect, coerces counties into cooperating with federal authorities when it comes to detaining undocumented immigrants.

Gimenez’s action directs the county’s corrections director to comply with Trump’s executive order by holding undocumented immigrants who have been detained by police for committing crimes long enough for federal authorities to pick them up, a measure that officials in many cities have resisted so far.

In 2016, the cost that the county would have incurred had it held the almost 100 undocumented inmates long enough for feds to pick them up would have been about $52,000, according to The Miami Herald, which broke the story.

In an interview with The Miami Herald, Gimenez said that his decision was a financial one, stating that “I want to make sure we don’t put in jeopardy the millions of funds we get from the federal government for a $52,000 issue. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to be arresting more people. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to be enforcing any immigration laws.”

On “Fox and Friends” this morning, Gimenez told the show’s hosts that the decision was a “no-brainer,” saying that Trump’s executive order “put an exclamation point” on the issue, and the county is merely returning to its 2014 policy honoring detention requests “regardless of the fact the governments says they’ll pay for it.”

Gimenez’s statement stands in contrast to statements made by mayors of other sanctuary cities such as Bill de Blasio of New York City. He said on CNN that the city would threaten to sue if federal funding was stripped because the city refused to turn over undocumented immigrants who commit low-level crimes. The city’s current policy states that the city will cooperate with the federal government if an undocumented immigrant commits a serious crime.

Gimenez, who voted for Hillary Clinton in the election, and called for Trump to step down as the Republican party’s nominee back in October, was praised by Trump, as the president took to Twitter yesterday afternoon to celebrate the perceived policy victory:

Miami-Dade Mayor drops sanctuary policy. Right decision. Strong! https://t.co/MtPvaDC4jM

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2017

Austin Elias-De Jesus

Austin is an editorial intern at Law Street Media. He is a junior at The George Washington University majoring in Political Communication. You can usually find him reading somewhere. If you can’t find him reading, he’s probably taking a walk. Contact Austin at Staff@Lawstreetmedia.com.

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